The Magician's Bird (4 page)

Bud hurried back around the corner and down the passageway just in time to hear Laurie's voice.

“Are you still alive?”

Bud clambered over the broken slats of wood and poked his head up through the hole. “You're not going to believe this. I think I've found a secret room.”

Laurie didn't believe it. Most people fall through a floor and have traumas, injuries, gaping flesh wounds with lots of blood. Bud Wallace falls through a floor and finds a secret freaking room. It wasn't fair. But that didn't stop Laurie from launching herself through the hole and into the passageway, almost twisting her ankle on the low stairway in the process.

“Are those stairs? What is this place?”

Misti peered down at them through the hole. “I think this is actually a trapdoor. This piece here, next to the place Bud smashed, looks like a latch or something. . . .”
Misti fiddled with something on the underside of the floor and then pulled. The whole floor panel above Bud and Laurie swung open.

“Well, that's great, Misti, but fat lot of good it does now,” Laurie said. “We've got the hole.”

Misti nodded and tentatively crept down the stairs. “Yeah, for now. But unless I'm wrong, we're going to need to fix that hole so that no one notices it, right?”

Laurie caught her breath. She didn't even want to think about what Betty Abernathy would say if she saw it. “Right.”

“And we'll still want to get down here, right? I mean, unless it's horrible, with deadly fungus and bloated corpses or something.” Misti looked at Bud. “Did you see any?”

“Bloated corpses?” Bud looked pale. “Nope, not so far.” He was really glad he hadn't thought of bloated corpses when he was making his mental list.

Misti picked up a piece of wood that had fallen with Bud. “I've got a hot glue gun at home. I bet we can make it look okay. We'll just need to make sure we don't forget and step on it.”

“Yeah, okay,” Laurie said. She wasn't one hundred percent sure that essentially booby trapping the floor
of the shed was a great idea, but she wasn't going to argue now. Not when there were secret passageways to explore. “Where does that go, Bud?” She pointed down the passage. “Did you go down there?”

“Yeah.” Bud grinned. “It goes to the door to the secret room.”

Laurie's eyes gleamed. “That's awesome. What's inside?”

Bud shrugged. “Beats me, I don't know. I didn't look.”

“You didn't look? How could you not look? It's a secret room!”

“I waited for you! Good grief, try to be a good guy . . . ,” Bud muttered.

“That's really cool of you,” Laurie said, smacking him lightly on the arm. She meant it, too. She didn't know if she would've been able to resist at least one peek inside. “Thanks, Bud.”

Misti nodded. “That's probably where the bloated corpses are.”

“Probably.” Bud grinned. He would've grinned bigger if he'd been sure Misti was joking.

“Well, we'll see soon. Come on, let's go!” Laurie grabbed Bud's penlight and bounced down the passageway without a second glance.

Laurie was already at the door by the time Bud and Misti caught up to her. The penlight beam was bouncing up and down on the door as Laurie waited impatiently for them to catch up.

“This is it, right?” she said, still bouncing in frustration.

Bud nodded.

“Then let's go!” Laurie reached out and turned the doorknob.

The door swung open, and Laurie, Bud, and Misti peered inside. It was kind of an anticlimax, though, since all they could really see was a tiny patch of red where the penlight was shining on something just inside the room.

“Well, this stinks,” Laurie said finally. “What is that red thing? Can you see anything?” She took a few steps into the room and shone the flashlight around. “It looks like, what? Furniture or something?”

Bud followed her into the room and took a few steps past her into the blackness. “Ow!” he yelped. “What the heck is that?”

“What?” Laurie pointed the flashlight in the direction of Bud's legs, but all she saw was a blur of khaki as Bud jumped back. “What was it?”

“I don't know! Something was there!” Bud said, his voice about an octave higher than usual.

Laurie pulled out her cell phone and opened it, bathing her face in blue light. She leaned forward and handed Bud the penlight. “This is ridiculous. We can't see anything.”

Bud took the penlight and immediately scanned the area around him. “We need to come back with a camping lantern or headlamp or something.”

“Or we could try this,” Misti's voice came from the door. And then suddenly the room was filled with light.

Bud and Laurie blinked from the sudden brightness. “How did you do that?” Laurie gasped.

“Light switch,” Misti said, nodding her head in satisfaction. “Thought there must be one, and yep, there it was!”

“Light switch,” Bud grumbled. He would've thought of that eventually. Probably he would've come up with it right off if Misti hadn't been going on and on about bloated corpses.

“Good grief, look at this place!” Laurie snapped her cell phone shut and looked around the room. She didn't know exactly what she'd been expecting—probably some kind of storage room or something. Filled with gold bars and jewels if she was lucky, old moldy boxes of files and junk if she wasn't. But she sure wasn't expecting this.

It was a room. And not just a room, but a really fancy room with Oriental-type rugs scattered on the floor and framed photos on antique wooden cabinets. The furniture was the old lady kind—tall wing chairs with hard velvet seats, a velvet couch with a wooden frame and claw-type arms, and lots of polished-looking wooden
end tables and things. Laurie felt like she was on a stage set or in a museum or something.

It didn't look like a room that was abandoned. It looked like a room someone used. Or had used. Because everything in it looked about a hundred years old. It was like when they'd opened the door, they'd walked through a time warp.

“That what jumped you, Bud?” Laurie said. A plush red velvet footstool was next to Bud's leg. Laurie poked it with her toe.

“Look, it could've been anything, okay?” Bud muttered, nudging the footstool back at her with his foot. “What do you think this place is, anyway?”

“It's Maria Tutweiler's place.” Misti looked up from a small rolltop desk on the other side of the room. She was examining a worn ledger book lying on top. “At least, all these things are hers. Her name's on this notebook. I'll bet it's her secret place.”

“I'll bet you're right.” Bud couldn't keep the goofy grin off his face. “A secret room. Man, how cool is that?”

Laurie peeked into a large cabinet next to the couch. It had a lattice-type front, and some kind of bird statue inside, and a bunch of ledgers like Misti was looking at lined up on a shelf below. “It's pretty cool, all right.” She
grinned back at Bud. She didn't see any jewels or gold bars or anything, but a secret room at school was pretty great. If she played her cards right, she'd never have to dress out for PE again.

“I can't believe no one knows about this!” Bud said, plopping down on the couch and putting his feet up on the inlaid coffee table. If nobody knew about the stuff in the room, Bud wasn't particularly worried about messing things up.

“But how can they not?” Laurie said, picking up a lion-shaped bookend and examining its feet. “Somebody knew once, at least. Did they just forget it was here?”

“Beats me. But they definitely don't know now. If they did, there would be teacher junk all over the place.” Bud tried to scooch in to the couch and get comfortable, but it just really wasn't that kind of couch.

“Yeah, you're right.” Laurie said, leaning against the chair. She looked at the plush rug and toed it with her sneaker. “Why would Maria Tutweiler have a secret room?” She couldn't help but think about the newspaper banner Calliope had showed her, and it gave her a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't like the idea of Maria Tutweiler having secrets she didn't know about. And this room definitely proved that she did.

“Because it was cool? I don't know, do you need a reason?” Bud scoffed, settling against the stiff couch back. He made a mental note to try a chair next time. The couch was definitely not the place to sit.

“You're probably right.” Laurie knew that if she had a secret room, she'd never come out, except maybe to sneak snacks out of the kitchen. It would be awesome.

She sighed. “I just wish we didn't have to tell Winkle about it.”

“What? What do you mean?” Bud took his feet off the coffee table. Now that he'd thought about it, he didn't want to seem too comfortable. Not yet, anyway. Not until he'd had a chance to move some of his stuff in and really give it the ol' Bud touch. “Who says we're going to tell him?”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Come on, Bud, you know we have to tell him. You think we can keep this secret?” She perched tentatively on the arm of the wing chair. She didn't want to mess anything up by touching it too much.

“I don't know, but don't you want to try?” Bud scooched down to the end of the couch. “Come on, Laurie, you know what's going to happen when we tell them. They'll cordon the whole place off with ropes,
and we'll never get to see it again. Not up close. You'll never get to touch that stupid lion, and Misti will never be able to read that stupid notebook she's holding. Am I right? Misti, back me up here.”

“It's in cursive, so I'm not really reading it anyway,” Misti said, putting the ledger down. “I'm not really great at cursive,” she admitted, sitting on the footstool. Laurie and Bud nodded sympathetically. Nobody liked cursive.

Misti shrugged. “But Bud's right. We can't even touch the spirit stick now, and you guys are the ones who found it.”

Laurie made a face. The spirit stick was a sore subject. She and Bud had found the spirit stick at the beginning of the year, and according to the letter from Maria Tutweiler, they were in charge of it. But ever since they'd found it, it had been behind glass in the entryway to the school. Miss Abernathy had sent people to detention for breathing too close to the glass, that's how much she guarded it.

Laurie slid backward until she was sitting in the wing chair with her legs draped over the arm. She stroked the head of the lion bookend and sighed. Bud was right. They weren't allowed to do anything. But she knew Principal Winkle, too, and if he found out they'd been
hiding something like this, their names would be dirt.

“Well, what if we just keep it secret for a little while? Maybe just a day or two?” Winkle would have to know eventually, sure, but it would be nice to have a secret hideout for a little while.

“That would work,” Bud said, nodding happily. “I'm fine with a day or two. That would give us a chance to investigate a little more. Maybe see what everything is. Like that door over there, where does that go? We can't tell Winkle about this place without knowing stuff like that, right?”

Laurie hesitated. She did want to know where that door in the corner went, now that she'd noticed it. “Right, that makes sense.”

Misti hopped up and ran to the strange small door. She opened it a crack and peered out.

“What is it?” Laurie held her breath. She really hoped the door didn't lead into Mr. Winkle's private office or the boys' bathroom or something. That would be bad.

“It's another passageway,” Misti said. “It's just like the other one, except a little skinnier.”

“Good grief, where could it go?” Laurie said, struggling to her feet. “Okay, Bud. Penlight. We've got to figure this out.”

Bud got up and handed Laurie the penlight. “Sounds good to me.”

Suddenly the room was filled with harsh electronic music.

“Oh, GOOD GRIEF!” Misti said, grabbing at her pocket.

“What the heck?” Bud said. “What is that?”

“‘Samba Beat #5,'” Misti grumbled, pulling her neon-pink phone out of her pocket and pushing a button. “Hi, Mom, what's up?” She held a finger up at Bud and Laurie and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know what time it is. Yeah, I
know
I was supposed to be home. Fine. Okay. Fine. Bye.” She pushed another button a little harder than it looked like she had to. “Well, guess what.”